December 2012

Volume 29, Issue 4

A description of oral health in three French jails

Authors: N. Decerle A. Woda E. Nicolas M. Hennequin
doi: 10.1922/CDH_2820Decerle05

Abstract

Prisoners display many features suggestive of a higher risk of poorer oral health than the general population. They have many risk factors: disadvantaged social background, consumption of psychoactive substances and a high proportion of persons with mental illness. The oral health of prisoners is handled by different care providers, such as hospital doctors together with some students, interns, and some dedicated dental practitioners. There are few data describing the outcomes of this activity. Objective: The objective of this descriptive study was to determine the oral health of prisoners in the current care system as observed in three French jails. Participants: 84 male prisoners were allocated to two subgroups according to the duration of incarceration: a short term group (≤2 years; 31 subjects, mean age: 31 (sd 13) years) and a long term group (>2 years; 53 subjects, mean age: 43 (sd 11) yearss). One investigator performed a semi-guided interview and a dental examination. Main outcome measures: The DMFT index, the Global Oral Health Assessment Index, the number of dental functional units and some specific indicators on mastication were collected. Results: Duration of incarceration explained more variability than age for numbers of missing teeth (26%; p<0.001) and functional units (24%; p<0.001). Long-term prisoners had greater chewing difficulties than short term prisoners. Conclusions: This study suggested that, in the French jails studied, a stable level of oral infection including untreated caries was obtained at the cost of a degraded masticatory function. Key words: dental caries, DMFT index, prisoners, jail, France

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Editorial - Do we really need another system for recording caries? Thoughts on ICDAS 258-259 Download
Dental Public Health in Action - Maintaining a survey programme during structural change 260-262 Download
Dental health of Irish alcohol/drug abuse treatment centre residents 263-267 Download
Recent trends in incidence and mortality of oral and pharyngeal cancer in Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany 268-273 Download
A description of oral health in three French jails 274-278 Download
Dental erosion among 12 year-old Libyan schoolchildren 279-283 Download
Children’s views on the experience of a visual examination and intra-oral photographs to detect dental caries in epidemiological studies 284-288 Download
Child dental anxiety, parental rearing style and referral status of children 289-292 Download
Caries status in 16 year-olds with varying exposure to water fluoridation in Ireland 293-296 Download
Caries prevalence in 12-year-old Cypriot children 297-301 Download
Cost-effectiveness models for dental caries prevention programmes among Chilean schoolchildren 302-308 Download
Industry structures in private dental markets in Finland 309-314 Download
Letter from America: UK and US state-funded dental provision 315-320 Download

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